On February 21st, we have completed 10th meeting as a milestone and we are so sanguine about our future.
We had 10 members including guests to enjoy the meeting. Kohei san, a guest, joined us as the first time guest of any toastmaster meeting. He found this online club which suit for his busy schedule. Miyuki san, our new member, joined after her busy working schedule. Bruce san, from Hiroshima, Naoki san, from Tokyo, Kaoru san, from Germany, Sarah san, from Nagano, Drian, from Kawasaki, Mikiko san, from Tokushima, and another guest, Yasuo san, from Tokushima and introduced by Mikiko san, joined together.
We started with small talk session as usual, how are you these days?, to know well each other. Some people are doing busy and some are enjoying watching Olympic games on TV. And shortly explained how we do online toastmaster meeting for the guests and drilled how we can use ZOOM functions such as chat and poll.
Word of the day was prepared by Asami san, who was busy and had to skip the meeting. The word of the day was "Sanguine". Sanguine means optimistic in the future. With precise elaboration and plenty of examples, we could understand well this word. Asami san is always super in preparing the word of the day even appointed just a day before the meeting.
We moved on to Prepared speech session. 1 prepared speech and 2 contest speeches was so fabulous. Naoki san tried his Project 4, A Dramatic Talk, from The Entertaining Speaker manual. The title was "Hope Begins with One." He started the speech with a fantastic anecdote of talking with a mirror. And he shared his experience in India and the conversations with his son. With plenty of examples, he could successfully touched the audience and the message was so precious. We all enjoyed his wonderful speech.
The next speaker was Sarah san. She tried to deliver her contest speech, "3 seconds". Her speech was also magnificent. She shared the story with her mother and son with many common scenes in families. And her climax was introduced by the yelling guy at the elevator. This could also touch our hearts. Amazing thing was her delivery. Even she delivered online, her facial expressions, body language, vocal variety and postures were so professional and skillful. We could learn many. Her story construction was super and the last message was so touchy. We all wanted to listen to her speech on live at the District contest.
The third speaker was Drian. Drian also delivered his contest speech, "Remember to Remember". The story was constructed with the critical accident he encountered in London. He delivered his speech in dramatic way with detailed elaboration. It was like a film. We are involved in the scene of the accident and we could feel as if we were on site of it. After his story, he shared us the strong message in life. How to choose our options in life. Life can be determined by the choice we make. His message asked us all to review ourselves.
We had two minutes silence to share the feedback to the speakers respectively. It was another great prepared speech session.
Then we had Table Topic Speech session with the theme of milestone. As we had 10th meeting this day, it was a kind of milestone for all of us. Then we asked four table topic speakers to select one question from seven options. Kaoru san, Yasuo san, Miyuki san and Kohei san tried their impromptu speeches. Kaoru san shared her story about climbing, Yasuo san shared his Tokushima TMC experiences, Miyuki san shared her job and Kohei san shared his 2018 goal. All delivered well with interesting stories. After the session, we had a poll who the best speaker was.
And we had evaluation session and we had General evaluator this day. Mikiko san facilitated evaluation session so elegantly. The first evaluator, Bruce san, evaluated Naoki san's dramatic speech. Bruce san's evaluation was super. He used a rhyme such as humor with mirror. He could elaborate the good points in articulately and shared a point to improve. His evaluation was our role model, indeed.
We had floor evaluation for the contest speeches, facilitated by Mikiko san. We could share our impression and delivered encouragement for the speaker to win the contests.
Mikiko san also shared her general evaluation for the meeting. It was really helpful to have our objective views through the meeting so that we can apply them for the coming meetings. As long as we have some feedback, we can be sanguine about our progress. Yes, we could use the word of the day more frequently.
In the business session, Naoki san raised his hand to be a mentor for Miyuki san. Miyuki san is the first member who has no experience of toastmaster meeting before this online meetings. So a mentor can be a good resource for her to take smooth steps on her toastmaster path. And the guest, Kohei san, decided to join the club and we all welcomed him together. He has excellent English skill and strong will to improve his capability. He can be sanguine onwards as long as we are close to him. Yasuo san could share kind feedback to us and hoping he can join again in the coming future.
The next meeting is going to be held on March 7th at the same time. Looking forward to seeing you all.